Elder’s Will: Wednesday Excerpt #3

Here is the third entry in my continuing series of excerpts from my epic fantasy novel, ELDER’S WILL. For the first and second installments, click here and here.

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Evening had set in, a gray sheen of fading light replacing the brilliant orange glow on my windowsill, when I heard the first sound. It was a series of shouts from the Green, the sort meant to gain attention. They came and went in a matter of seconds. Still the hairs stood up on my neck. When nothing else followed, I decided that the noises were from a student being caught outside his dormitory. Perhaps he had escaped to try to track down a bite to eat. My gut growled its displeasure at being ignored and I joked to myself that if we weren’t excused from quarantine soon I might do the same.

Ten more minutes passed. I had just made it through a dense passage about historical document cataloguing methods at the King’s Library when a series of shouts wrested me from my scholarly trance. I listened to the telltale click-clack of horseshoes scattering across the flagstoned pathways of the Garden Green. And then there was silence. Even the muted sounds of the common area below me ceased, as if those students held their breaths to listen just as I did. I rolled my shoulders and heaved a big sigh. My palms were sweaty. Blood pounded in my ears. All for nothing more than some Royal Guardsmen crossing the Green on patrol. I cursed my overreaction and buried my nose in my book again.